page_title: Pál Schmitt
section_title: Political career
hierarchical_section_title: Pál Schmitt / Political career
caption_attribution_description: Magyar: Budapest, 2011.01.08. Schmitt Pál, a Magyar Köztársaság elnöke beszédet tart az önkéntesség európai évének megnyitóján a Millenáris Teátrum épületében. Fotó: Európai Bizottság/Dudás Szabolcs
context_page_description: Pál Schmitt is a Hungarian Olympic fencer and politician who served as President of Hungary from 2010 to 2012.
  Schmitt was a successful fencer in his youth, winning two gold medals at the Summer Olympics. Later, he served as an ambassador during the 1990s and was a Vice President of the European Parliament from 2009 to 2010. After briefly serving as Speaker of the National Assembly of Hungary in 2010, Schmitt was elected as President of Hungary in a 263 to 59 vote in the Parliament of Hungary. He was sworn in as President on 6 August 2010. On 2 April 2012, Schmitt announced to the Hungarian Parliament his resignation as President, following the outbreak of a controversy surrounding his 1992 doctoral dissertation.
context_section_description: Between 1983 and 1989, Schmitt was the general secretary of the Hungarian Olympic Committee and under-secretary of sports between 1981 and 1990. In 1989 after the End of Communism in Hungary he became president of the Hungarian Olympic Committee. He later became a diplomat, serving as Hungary's ambassador to Spain (1993–1997) and Switzerland (1999–2002). While in Spain he was also accredited to Andorra from 1995.
  In 2002 he ran for the position of mayor of Budapest, but his independent candidacy also supported by Fidesz was unsuccessful. In 2003, he became a deputy president of Fidesz. He led the party list of Fidesz in the 2009 European elections in Hungary and was elected as a Member of the European Parliament with the Fidesz – Hungarian Civic Union, to the Bureau of the European People's Party and was vice-chair of the European Parliament's Committee on Culture and Education.
  Schmitt chaired the Delegation to the EU–Croatia Joint Parliamentary Committee. On 14 July 2009 he was elected one of the 14 Vice-Presidents of the European Parliament. He became the Speaker of the National Assembly of Hungary after the Hungarian parliamentary election in 2010.
caption: Pál Schmitt in 2011
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